Why the "20 minute tempo run"?

who settled for 20 minutes as the magic time for a tempo run? who? you must be a troll.

Tempo runs should be about 8% of your weekly mileage. For some people that's 20 minutes, for others it can be 40-50 minutes.

Wrong. There is no magic number. A tempo can be much longer, sometimes 20 miles or more.

I don't have the Daniel's book in front of me but I believe 20 minutes at your "60 minute race pace", most of the run usually works out to a certain percentage (80-85%) of your max heart rate which is effectively your lactate threshold heartrate. That's were the 20 minutes comes from.

There's nothing magical about 20 minutes. Daniel's doesn't even advocate only doing 20 tempo's, you'll just have to slow the pace down some for longer tempos so you are still targeting that same percentage of your max heart rate.

wellnow wrote:

Wrong. There is no magic number. A tempo can be much longer, sometimes 20 miles or more.

Not true. Running for 60 minutes at marathon pace is "threshold" training just like a 20 minute tempo run is. Maybe a dozen people in the world do runs of 20 miles at or near their marathon pace regularly during training.

I never said there was a magic number, all I said is around 8% of your mileage should be at tempo pace, or more specifically "aerobic threshold" training.

hi adis wrote:

who settled for 20 minutes as the magic time for a tempo run? who? you must be a troll.

we had a meeting last week and it was decided there. your invitation must have been lost in the mail.

There actually is some substance to the choice of 20 min, I've read it somewhere but I can't recall it right now. I think it's something Daniels picked up during his stay in Sweden when he did research with Per-Olof Astrand. If someone knows the details, please share them with us.

Because, a good 2-mile run is a nice way to shake out the legs.

There's little research to back it up.

There is no magic of 20min. It's bunk.

In his first edition of the book, daniels recomended a 20min threshold at 60min race pace. In the first edition, he basically said that 20min was optimal because that's about how long most people can stand running at 60min pace in practice. He stated that paces slower or faster weren't as beneficial.

In his 2nd edition, he thankfully revised this to include longer tempo runs at slightly lower paces.

The length of the threshold run has nothing to do with percentage of total mileage.

It has to do where you are in your progression. Some people need 15minutes at that pace, some well trained runners need to train at 35min or so at that pace to get the same training effect.

That's not even taking into consideration slightly slower or faster tempos.

wellnow wrote:

Wrong. There is no magic number. A tempo can be much longer, sometimes 20 miles or more.

Jeff Albertson wrote:

Not true. Running for 60 minutes at marathon pace is "threshold" training just like a 20 minute tempo run is. Maybe a dozen people in the world do runs of 20 miles at or near their marathon pace regularly during training.

I never said there was a magic number, all I said is around 8% of your mileage should be at tempo pace, or more specifically "aerobic threshold" training.

Not true again. It can't believe I am about to say this but "wellnow" is right this time.

A tempo run is not a run at aerobic threshold. It is not a run at lactate threshold. A tempo run is "comfortably hard" run. Period. There is no "threshold". There is no measured amount of lactate. There is no set time value or distance value. You run comfortably hard scaled the distance, period.

If you want to do a lactate threshold run or an aerobic threshold run, by all means do so. But those are a subset of tempo, not a synonym for it. Tempo is a range of paces

The original research was done with a 20 minute run

google

_Sjodin & Jacobs 1981

I will make less of a physiological argument than a mental one. For a lot of folks running at that intensity for more than 20 minutes by yourself can be quite challenging. I tell folks it is more of a focus issue. I usually do 2x20 minutes with a 5 min break between. It is just difficult to focus on running that intensity for 40 minutes (I use a little slower than 10k pace for these efforts so a lot depends on what constitutes "tempo").

Actually your 40 min pace is not necessarily a lot slower than your 20min pace at this sort of effort.

"So just for review, let’s see how the experts define the term. Also known as an anaerobic threshold (AT) run or lactate-threshold run, the tempo run was popularized by Jack Daniels, Ph.D., about a decade ago. Here’s his definition, taken from Daniels’ Running Formula (Human Kinetics): "A tempo run is nothing more than 20 minutes of steady running at threshold pace." (He goes on to say that 20 minutes is ideal, but may be varied to suit the needs of a particular course.) Without getting too technical, threshold pace is the effort level just below which the body’s ability to clear lactate, a by-product of carbohydrate metabolism, can no longer keep up with lactate production. Daniels states that this pace is, for most people, about 25 to 30 seconds per mile slower than current 5K race pace."

http://www.runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=5615&PageNum=1

luv2run wrote:

I tell folks it is more of a focus issue.

bingo! 20' tempo runs for most mid-distance runners is also about teaching the athlete how to maintain a race alertness for an extended period of time.

Temporopolis wrote:

Seriously why is 20 mins the magic number?

It seems to be a choice between a "standard" 20 minute tempo run and everything else.

If Im training for 5k and do 40 min tempo runs (obviously pace will be slower than 20 min tempo) will this hurt me?

I just dont see why we have settled at 20 mins as the magic number?????

A long time ago as club athletes we used to settle for a hard pace four mile run once a week(just happened to be around 5-5.30/mile pace).Didn't define things so much in those days,but I would say that it was THE training session that showed its benefit most markedly in reducing our race times.So just do it.

I bet if we had everyone post their definitions of a tempo run, it would vary.

Before anyone says "it is a lactate threshold run" you need to tell me whose/which lactate threshold are you referencing.

Or use 10K pace as a base and add or subtract time from that pace.

physiologically, if you run right at the lactate threshold, your blood lactate will be rather stable for 18-22 minutes, after which it will begin to rise more rapidly, resulting in complete exhaustion after about 50 or 60 minutes. That's why.

I believe daniels says 20-30. Using his definition of temp (pace you can run for an hour. And if you don\'t use his definiton then debating his time limits is retarded) the logic is that if you run more it is too hard for most people to recover from. It is easy write things down llke 3x4 miles at HM pace with 5 min rest. It is a lot harder to do those workouts and not have to take a week off. Now if you start slowing the pace (2 hour race pace instead of 1 hour race pace) obviously you can go longer. If that gives a better adaptation is sort of up in the air. Probably depends on what your training for and when you are in your cycle. You don\'t have to choose between these workouts. Do them both

Temporopolis wrote:

Seriously why is 20 mins the magic number?

It seems to be a choice between a \"standard\" 20 minute tempo run and everything else.

If Im training for 5k and do 40 min tempo runs (obviously pace will be slower than 20 min tempo) will this hurt me?

I just dont see why we have settled at 20 mins as the magic number?????

Yeah thats what I was thinking "they both have benefits".

But for somebody focusing on middle distance when is the best time to do 20 min ones and when is the best time to do 30-40 min ones?

Or would it possibly be better to do 20 min one week 40 min the next?